Title: Reach out, Scream OutSeries: This is What's LeftFandom: Bandom (My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco)Pairing: pre- Brendon/Mikeyhc_bingoprompt: MutationSummary: Nothing made the throbbing, pulling, stabbing sensations in his brain cease. Nothing even toned it down. Rating: PG-13Warnings: alien abductions, physical pain, mental pain, scientific experimentsWord Count: ~1000Disclaimer: Don't know. Don't own. I deal in lies.Author's Notes: This should stand alone just fine, but is technically Part 2 of the This is What's Left 'verse shared with dr_jasley. This follows Waiting for the Burn Out (Mikey's POV) and A Shadow of Hope (Gerard's POV of Waiting for the Burn Out).

Nothing made sense. Everything was fuzzy around the edges, like Mikey’s eyes wouldn’t open all the way. There was a throbbing at the back of his head, the sort of pounding that came from falling backwards and knocking your head against asphalt.

Sometimes, when his head ached and his eyes stung from the bright lights, Mikey missed the electroshock treatments. He never told anyone, except Brendon, sometimes, in whispered conferences when they were allowed meals together. Today was getting up to being one of those days.

They were doing… something again. Mikey tossed, turned, tried to get comfortable on the pallet that at least resembled a hospital bed. The sheets were cold, the blanket itchy, and there was an IV in his arm. It all screamed ordinary, Earth hospital. If Mikey didn’t know the Udonians were on the other side of the glass, he would have mistaken it for home.

Mikey had lost a few hours or maybe a day. He had no idea what time it was; Brendon hadn’t been able to explain the staff rotations. Brendon kept track of things like hours because the Udonians torturing Mikey or shoving demolished handheld tech at Brendon kept switching with something that was possibly regularity.

Brendon would probably know why Mikey couldn’t see shit, but he wasn’t there and Mikey didn’t know what to do about that. They usually let him see Brendon for dinner. Brendon swore it was lunch, but Mikey was pretty sure it was dinner. Just like Mikey was pretty sure he’d been abducted from that fucking job interview ten months ago, even though Brendon promised that it had only been eight.

The pain broke through at a dull throb that brought Mikey back. He tried to remember but only knew that things had been really bright and straight up fucking vivid. Other than the colors – rainbow swirls that Mikey remembered thinking looked like an insanely fast tilt-a-whirl ride like the one Mikey and Ray had been trapped on that time Gerard’s funnel cake had revolted on him – Mikey didn’t remember much.

He tried to open his eyes, but all he saw was black and white fuzz that went perfectly with the white noise broadcasting in his head. Twitching, Mikey started to panic. The only thing that kept him calm was knowing they’d probably let him see Brendon later if he behaved. He spared a thought for the way the Udonians were playing Mikey and Brendon as incentives against each other, but his head pounded too much for him to chase the thought down.

Silently, carefully, he flailed a hand out and realized he was lying face-down on the bed. Groaning, Mikey lifted up on his arms enough to flop over onto his back, crying out the second his head hit the pillow. That wasn’t right. In all this time he’d been here, Mikey had never had headaches like this.

Mikey reached up to prod at the spot where the pain was the worst, forcing his body into a sitting position as soon as he felt the tiny bald spot that framed a few small puncture wounds.

“What the fucking hell?”

It wasn’t much of a spot, a couple inches in diameter, maybe, but it was enough to make Mikey see red. Or maybe that was the headache. He folded over, clamping his heads over his ears. This wasn’t like any headache he’d ever felt before. Migraines were different than this, had a defined location of origin. This, this was different.

Mikey could have bought the puncture wounds causing it, but it didn’t start there. No, the feeling started further back, deeper. There was something in the center of his brain that was trying to get out. His thoughts were fucking flowing out of his head and bouncing back on nothing. It didn’t make sense. Thoughts didn’t do that.

He groaned and rocked and tried everything he knew; nothing helped. Nothing made the throbbing, pulling, stabbing sensations in his brain cease. Nothing even toned it down. When the pain got particularly sharp – like it was angry at Mikey for not know what to do – there was a tiny moment of clarity.

The swirl of ROYGBIV colors had started after he’d been strapped down. He’d been sitting up… sitting in a chair with his limbs locked down and his head in an intricate brace. The fucking Udonian, alien bastards had come at him, then. There had been laser razors and some sort of new electrode Mikey had never seen. He didn’t know enough of their language to translate what it meant but he knew there had been a drilling sound, a sharp pain and then nothing. They had asked him questions that he must have answered, but they seemed more interested in poking things he couldn’t see.

Whatever those things had been, they’d done this. Some part of his brain had been poked, shocked, lacerated, damaged until his mind wasn’t his anymore. His head wasn’t enough; his thoughts were too weak, not shiny enough, not the right level of intricate.

Mikey didn’t know what that meant, just that he felt like there was something he was missing. Even though he knew it would probably mean he would have to go another meal, day, week without seeing Brendon again, Mikey let the profanities fall out of his mouth in jumbled yells. His head hurt anyway, he might as well make all the fucking noise he could.

It stung when he ripped the IV out of his skin, but the metallic clang the stand made when he pitched it against the one-way mirror was momentarily satisfying.